Peschanyy Island (Laptev Sea)

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Location of Peschanyy Island in the Laptev Sea.

Peschanyy Island (Russian: Остров Песчаный) (also known as Ostrov Mel') is an unusually-shaped island in the Laptev Sea. It consists of a 12 km long elliptical sandspit which is broken in its eastern and southeastern side forming three smaller islands. The landspit encloses a shallow lagoon, making Peschanyy look like a tropical atoll in the maps. This island is barren and uninhabited.

Peschanyy is located 74 km to the east of Bolshoy Begichev Island. The Siberian coast lies 62 km to the south.

The sea surrounding Peschanyy Island is covered with pack ice in the winter. There are large polynias forming on the sea in Peschanyy Island's vicinity.^[1] The climate is marked by severe Arctic weather with frequent gales and low temperatures even in the short summer season which lasts barely two months.

There are colonies of walruses on this lonely island.

A British yachtsman visiting Peschanyy Island recently commented on the weather and on the desolation of the place: "I have been anchored off Ostrov Peschanyy for a week now and during that time have had to move position eight times. There is, as a rule of thumb, a gale per day lasting between 8 and 12 hours" ... "Ostrov Peschanyy must be one of the bleakest and least inviting islands anywhere in the world."^[2]

[edit] Administration

For administrative purposes Peschanyy Island belongs to the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic of the Russian Federation.

Peschanyy Island in the Laptev Sea should not be confused with the following places also named Peschanyy:

Cape Peschanyy, Bol'shevik Island Severnaya Zemlya (Latitude: 79° 25' 6 N, Longitude: 102° 28' 5 E)
Ostrov Peschanyy, Azerbaijan (Latitude: 40° 18' 39 N, Longitude: 50° 3' 40 E)
Ostrov Peschanyy, Ukraine (Latitude: 45° 22' 0 N, Longitude: 29° 40' 60 E)